I can speak with 100% confidence that the football program at OA is currently on pause, I was the head coach there this last year. We had 16 players, 8 were seniors that graduated and 6 freshman who never played a minute of football previous to this season. Next year the team has 8 returning players, if every single player from this past year comes back. There are a couple reasons why the team is on pause 1) lack of players: No enrolling freshman have shown interest in playing football next year 2) Decreasing enrollment: OA is having one of their smallest class sizes coming in to the school for next year. 3) Lack of practice space: The current space where we practiced belonged to the nuns who live at the local Sisters of St. Francis and sits next to a cemetery. Due to Covid, there has been an increase in needed space for burial and the nuns needed the ground to accommodate that.
It is an unfortunate situation for sure, the community is great and the kids are phenomenal, but with the circumstances listed above, its just not fair to the student-athletes to try to continue to throw something together and put them in situations where they could possibly get hurt (we finished our sectional game with 12 kids this year). They are going to hold on to the pads and such and the program is in the status of "on pause" with the hope that in the next couple years, number of enrollment will increase at OA and they can gather enough interest to reboot.
